ABSTRACT
The goal of all basic biochemical and biophysical research is increased understanding of the mechanisms of life processes: i.e., the translation of biology into the language of chemistry and physics. The kind of psychological atmosphere in which this work is going on is pretty obvious, even if the nature of the ancient earth’s atmosphere is still being haggled over. With regard to the pre-biological synthesis of nucleic acid precursors, there is also some interesting work by the same investigators. While heating up things, Fox put together some malic acid and urea, both reasonable components of “pre-biological soup,” and found he had synthesized ureidosuccinic acid with unexpected ease; this compound is a known biological precursor of the pyrimidine bases of nucleic acids.
